


necessary evil

by IceisAwesome



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abusive Dursley Family, Alternate Universe - Dark, Dark Golden Trio AU, Dark Harry, Dark Hermione Granger, Dark Lord Harry Potter, Dark Ron Weasley, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi, POV Multiple, Slytherin Harry, Slytherin Harry Potter, Slytherin Hermione Granger, Slytherin Ron Weasley
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2018-06-04 17:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6668506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceisAwesome/pseuds/IceisAwesome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione wants to change the world, Ron wants to be free of his family's shadow, and Harry will be greater than any other wizard has ever been.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ron and First Year

Ron’s not stupid.

He knows if he ends up in Gryffindor it’ll just be seven years of disappointment. It’ll be seven years of housemates disappointed he isn’t wild like Fred and George, seven years of a quidditch team mad they don’t have a player like Charlie, seven years of girls wishing he was charming like Bill, seven years of teachers telling him he should be like Percy. 

So when the hat offers him Slytherin he looks at the boy from the train, looks at Harry, who he  _knows_ isdestined for greatness, and says yes. 

Harry is, well he doesn’t know what Harry is. Harry is clever and smart and trying so hard to hide that he’s broken. 

He doesn’t like Hermione at first, not until they find her in the bathroom, the troll already bleeding out. He sees the way Harry looks at her, and knows she’s his now too.

It’s Christmas when Harry convinces him to sneak out, it’s Christmas when Harry shows up the books on dark magic he stole from the library. Ron wants to protest at first, wants to point out it’s bad, but he can’t. Not when Harry’s face lights up like that.

Quirrell hurts Harry, puts him in the hospital wing, and Ron has to bite back his anger. He wants to kill the man, wants to make him hurt, and one look at Hermione tells him she feels the same way. 

 


	2. Ron and Second Year

Ron knows he should feel afraid when Harry hisses during dueling club, knows he should be worried. Instead all he can feel is pride in Harry, happiness for the soft look on his friend’s face when the snake curls around his arms. 

Ron casts his first dark spell the night Hermione is petrified. He was meant to protect her, meant to keep her and Harry safe, and he failed. Dark magic doesn’t seem so bad if it will keep them from hurting again. 

The books call it blood magic, and Ron relishes the taste of metal on his tongue. It feels like fire in his veins, like a thousand birthday’s at once, and he wonders for the first time how his family could turn their back on it for the light. 

Ron kills Lockhart a day after he tastes the dark. He takes Lockhart’s wand and intends to use the killing curse, to make it quick and clean. He changes his mind once the man starts talking, starts talking, starts calling him stupid.

Lockhart dies with a scream on his lips and his tongue on the floor, Lockhart dies with blood staining the floor and on the walls.

Ron meets Harry’s gaze in the hospital wing and smiles.

Ron and Harry go after the basilisk together, Ron and Harry confront Voldemort together, and Ron stares when Riddle tells him Harry or Ginny will have to die, that he’ll have to choose one.

Of course he’ll choose Harry. Harry is his friend, Harry is more than a brother. Ginny is nothing compared to what Harry is.

Harry kills Riddle before he chooses, Harry directs a cutting curse at the basilisk and stabs a fang into the diary. 

His sister sobs in Dumbledore’s office and Ron doesn’t care.


	3. Hermione and the Sorting

Hermione knows she's going to change the world.

She knows this like she knows the girls that bully her deserve to die, like she knows some people don't deserve to live, like she knows her parents are scared of the things she says.

She knows, she just doesn't know how. 

She's growing more and more impatient, more and more frustrated, when the letter from Hogwarts comes.

When the letter comes that says magic is real, that proves she's special, that proves the other kids are wrong.

It's the happiest she's ever been. 

She hears the hat whisper _you'll do great things_ , she hears the shout of _Slytherin!_

Hermione smiles. 

 


	4. Neville

Dumbledore takes Neville aside and tells him about the prophecy.

He nods and smiles and makes the right noises at the appropriate places as Dumbledore goes on and on about duty and doing what's right, about sacrifice for the greater good.

The old man goes on and Neville thanks the gods he knows how to shield his mind as he looks into twinkling blue eyes.

Dumbledore finishes and Neville breathes deep when he leaves the headmaster's office, the cloying incense replaced with harsh air.

Neville waits until the castle is asleep and the professors have stopped patrolling to move, cutting his thumb and pressing the cut to the galleon Hermione gifted him.

Message sent, he creeps out of the dorm and down the stairs, up another flight and hugging corridors until he finally reaches the seventh floor and the room within.

Green eyes look up from under a mop of black hair, and Neville stops, inclines his head, before taking a seat opposite Harry

"The Phoenix pulled me aside."

"And what did the old man want?" Harry asks, green eyes sharp.

"He's starting to suspect you're turning to the dark. He tried to imply that you might ally with Tom. And then he started going on about sacrifice and the greater good."

"So he's made his move?"

"He didn't-he didn't actually say anything, but yeah. I'm the backup, the replacement martyr."

"To him," Harry interjects, "only to him and his precious light."

Neville feels something warm bloom in his chest, a spreading fondness as he looks at the boy sitting with him.

The boy that saw his potential when no one else did, the boy that picked him up and showed him he could be great, the boy that gave him family and friends and a thousand things he never knew he wanted.

The boy he's killed and lied and stolen for, the boy he'd burn down the world for. 

Neville remembers cuts made with silver knives pressed together, of ancient chants binding him to a purpose greater than himself. 

He bows his head.

"Thank you, my lord."


	5. Harry and his Discovery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for child abuse and Harry not being in the best place mentally.

Harry notices things. He notices how Petunia and Vernon flinch away from him before remembering themselves, though Dudley doesn't. He notices how they look away when they talk about his parents, he sees the nervousness that shows they're lying.

Harry notices things, so he notices when strange things start happening around him. He notices the humming under his skin when Vernon locks him in the closet for two days without food.

Their fear, their lies, the strange things that happen and the humming under his skin, it all has to be connected.

He just doesn't know how, is driving himself insane trying to figure out what it is, right until he's walking home one day.

The route is a dirty alley littered with garbage so foul even Dudley's Harry Hunters won't follow. He's climbing through filth to avoid being beaten, he's getting angry and angrier, he knows this isn't right-

And a trash can hurtles against the wall. He didn't touch it but it moved all the same.

Harry concentrates, focuses on the anger again, and pulls. Another bag slams into the brick wall.

He doesn't think he's hallucinating (though really, how can he be sure?) so that must mean-

Harry has powers. That's why they're so afraid. His mum and dad probably had powers to, he stops to think, if Vernon and Petunia lied about their deaths, but that doesn't matter.

No, what matters is that Harry has power. He has something to stop the beatings and the starving, something to stop the Harry hunts and being locked away. He smiles the whole way back to Privet drive.

Vernon is yelling and threatening when Harry steps through the door, Dudley is already lumbering towards him for a punch, but Harry just smiles.

He focuses, taking control of the thing under his skin, twisting until it responds.

Vernon shrieks and Petunia's face goes pale when they see Dudley cry out and slump to the floor.

Harry takes a step over Dudley's twitching form and they finally notice his smile. Vernon doesn't seem to care, but Petunia-Petunia's afraid.

"You're scared of me," Harry tells them, smile growing wide. "I always wondered why, wondered how you could be when you had all the power. But now I know."

"What are you on about-" Vernon starts, but falls silent when Petunia wraps a shaking hand around his arm and gives him a look.

The man starts forward, rage in his eyes as he sees Dudley twitch, so Harry concentrates again.

Harry's aunt shrieks as her husband stumbles, clutching at his broken wrist.

"I can hurt you now," Harry tells them, smile turning hysterical. "I can hurt you like you hurt me. I can hurt you and you can't do a thing about it." Petunia swallows a sob, eyes wide.

"Something is keeping me here, isn't it?" He asks turning his attention to his aunt. "Something or someone. It doesn't matter, really, it just means you have to keep me. You have to keep me, and now I can hurt you."

"Please," Petunia starts to say, voice wobbling with an emotion he can't identify, but Harry ignores her.

"I'm taking the room next to Dudley's. You're buying me clothes and the things I want, I'm eating when and what I want, and none of you can ever touch me again."

"I'll kill you!" Vernon shrieks, but Harry only laughs.

"And go to prison? No, you'll stay here. You'll stay and you'll listen like you always should've."

Another pause to focus again, and Vernon falls to his knees.

Petunia lets out a sob and nods her head, says they'll do it, says they'll do anything, begs Harry not to hurt them, hurt her.

Harry smiles. He knows this is the start of something wonderful.


	6. Chat between Snape and Black

Severus looks up from his book, fingers twitching in time to the pacing footsteps outside his office.

This will be an interesting conversation, if the man outside manages to man up and actually enter.

He goes back to reading before fighting back a jolt as Black, with all of his characteristic grace, flings the door open. He doesn’t bother to hide the grimace the sound of wood on stone elicits, nor his open displeasure at being interrupted by the man.

“Snape,” Black greets him, tone cold, and Severus resists the urge to sigh. Yes, he knows what this is about.

“Black. Why are you here?”

“You know why!” Black snarls, more like a dog than a man, before reining himself in, pivoting and beginning to pace again. “How did-how did-”

“How did Potter end up like this?” Severus interrupts smoothly, a smirk growing as he stares into Black’s increasingly desperate eyes.

“Before I answer, I must ask, when did you finally notice?”

“Wha-” Black starts, but he continues onwards.

“Did you notice when the books in the Black Library were no longer so dusty? Did you notice when those infernal portraits in Grimmauld Place started praising him?”

“Or did you notice earlier? Did you catch sight of your precious godson cursing someone during his third year? Did you notice all the little oddities? Or were you so consumed by guilt, so patently useless, that you didn’t even notice what your godson had become?”

“Or,” and Severus smiles in a vicious slash of teeth, “did it only occur to you after the boy managed to talk his way into a medal for killing someone?”

Black snarls at that, hand moving to his wand before stopping in a visible effort to regain control.

“Please,” and oh, that is a surprise, he’s never heard a Black beg, “I just want to understand.”

He looks at the other man for a moment, studying him carefully, before leaning down and wrapping on a desk drawer. Black stares in confusion as he slides out a cup and a bottle of firewhiskey, though he ignores it.

The other man frowns when he knocks a shot back, but Severus ignores him before reluctantly putting it down.

“I can only guess as to where it started. Potter was wary of mind magic from the start, and I was only able to get glimpses from him. But I can tell you what I think happened.”

“Go on,” Black snaps.

“I can tell you Lily’s sister and her husband abused the boy. I can tell you Potter was treated worse than a misbehaving house elf. As far as I can tell, the boy lived in terror until he did  _something_ -I’m not sure what-and managed to instill a healthy fear in them. I think that’s why he was so reluctant to move in with you, truth be told.”

“What?” The other man asks, righteous anger interrupted by the last part of Severus’s statement.

“Isn’t it obvious?” He raises a brow, already unimpressed. “The boy could do what he wanted when he wanted because his guardians were terrified of him-or he could live with a man that would try to bond with him.”

Severus shrugs again, pouring another shot of whiskey. “Freedom to do as he pleased, or living with a supporter of the light? The choice seems obvious.”

“But,” Black flounders again, looking so lost Severus almost feels pity, before speaking. “Why didn’t he say something to Dumbledore?”

He laughs, because of course he understands. Of course an abused child would understand another, just like one as spoiled as Black doesn’t.

“Would you trust authority? The boy knew from the start Dumbledore placed him there without checking on him, and he knew from the start the headmaster expected him to play a role as soon as he entered the school.”

“Potter is cunning,” Severus admits now that the drink has loosened his tongue. “Potter is cunning and clever and filled with ambition. He would never be the Gryffindor hero the headmaster wanted.”

“What does Dumbledore think?” Black asks, a curious sort of desperation in his eyes.

“The headmaster thinks Voldemort will find a way to recruit Potter to his cause.” Severus informs him, leaving out that the old man is already grooming the Longbottom heir. Or that the old man hasn't realized where Longbottom's loyalty truly lies. 

“And what do you think?”

“Me?” Severus laughs at that. “I think the old man is a fool. The boy may be dark, but he is no Voldemort-he has more ambition, for one!"

"You should be proud," he tells Black, taking delight in the new despair in the man's eyes. "Harry Potter will accomplish far more than the Dark Lord ever did."


End file.
